An award-winning artist has today completed a year-long experiment conducted in a floating eco-lab dubbed the Exbury Egg.

Stephen Turner has spent the past 12 months carrying out a series of tests in a £40,000 craft that resembles a giant rugby ball.

Mr Turner has been studying climate change and other aspects of the environment from his temporary home off the Hampshire coast.

The data he has collected will now be analysed by students at the Oceanography Department at the University of Southampton.

The Exbury Egg was launched last year. After being lowered into the sea at Lymington Yacht Haven it was towed to the Beaulieu River and moored near Exbury Gardens.

The award-winning craft is just six metres long and has little in the way of mod cons.

Mr Turner has had to get used to using a chemical loo, cooking on a paraffin stove and sleeping in a hammock.

The Exbury Egg was built with the help of Romsey-based Dr Stephen Payne, designer of Queen Mary 2.

It was constructed by Hampshire-boatbuilder Paul Baker in an old milking shed at Battramsley Farm, near Lymington.